--- In [email protected], John Hays <j...@...> wrote: > The point is, that Internet as a whole is pretty survivable. It might > not be at your particular location (especially residences) but that > doesn't mean the Internet is "down"
Not only is the Internet never "down" overall -- although it certainly might be in any local area -- but it would be absolutely impossible for any group of amateurs to build a system remotely approaching the amount of redundancy, connectivity, and bandwidth that the Internet has. Hence, while it absolutely makes sense to insure that local repeaters stay alive and that in general emergency plans scale all the way from "Internet access on every corner" to "nothing more than simplex voice, HT to HT," IMO a significant part of a modern emergency plan would include backup Internet connectivity from hilltop to hilltop, just as in years past packet gateways were often provided with similar connectivity. In times of disaster (when Internet access in a local area is generally unavailable) Your average ARES group can help a hundred times as many people if they're just able to set up a WiFi access point that has Internet connectivity (even slow connectivity -- 128kbps is still plenty if you just need to send a few e-mails or photos) compared to some guy sitting taking notes and passing them on via voice to someone who can make a phone call. Slightly alternative point of view: When one can obtain satellite Internet access these days for <$50/month, it almost seems questionable if spending a lot of new money on hilltop Internet repeaters even makes sense anymore: In an emergency, deploy your portable satellite Internet access kit, powered via solar or a small generator or whatever. I've occasionally suggested that ARES might be renamed ARCS -- Amateur Radio Community Services, as -- barring a few exceptions -- they have far more opportunity to help people at, e.g., local sporting events, community get togethers, parades, etc. than they ever will during a true emergency. Personally, I have no qualms about spending money on D*Star equipment. Amateur radio is first and foremost a hobby -- and as others have pointed out, in real dollars even with things like D*Star it's still as cheap if not cheaper today than it was 50 years ago. Realistically amateur radio no longer does much "advancing the state of the art," but that doesn't mean there isn't still a lot to learn and many services that can be provided in the meanwhile. I believe that tossing money the way of Icom for D*Star will just encourage them and other companies to produce more radios even even more features that are both useful and a lot of fun to utilize. ---Joel
